Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Our friends and collaborators of Teatr Zar are spending two weeks in Los Angeles conducting performances, specially arranged workshops and occasional concerts. "Gospels of Childhood. Triptych" opened last night at UCLA Live to a completely sold out run. Zar's work is for the intimate spaces, and that is a blessing. Royce Hall, a large venue, is transformed into a small sanctified space for closer transmission of song and action from performers to the audience. This proximity is paramount. Still nothing can compare to seeing their work at Apocalypsis room of Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, where darkness of the room resembles that of the black hole, and the acoustics those of the ancient caverns. Tuning into their performances in London, Chicago or Los Angeles requires perhaps a greater amount of work on behalf of the audience to tune out brightly lit "exit" signs, the dust of the big city, the head noise of the daily grind. Here are a few eloquent accounts of encountering Teatr Zar by American colleagues who witnessed their performances in Poland last summer: A Search for the Oldest Songs in the World by Jim O'Quinn, and Applauding in Poland by Guy Zimmerman. If one is attracted to this kind of theatre, making a pilgrimage to Wroclaw can be life altering. It certainly was for every ARTEL member who went.

For a direct website of Teatr Zar, please follow this link: Teatr Zar.